Clio MCARTHUR

CLIO McARTHUR SULLIVAN, daughter of James McArthur and Elizabeth (Lizzie) Oxborrow. How would you like to have been born on the day before Christmas? This is the day Clio McArthur was born, December 24, 1896. This is a good time to have a birthday, all of the family is in the mood to give gifts and have fun. No one ever missed going to her home on Christmas Eve to wish her a happy birthday. She added to the fun by having popcorn balls and candy to give them. Clio was born in the old John T. Woodbury home, later owned by Mrs. Rhondo Ruesch, where she lived two years with her parents, James and Elizabeth McArthur. They moved to the home at 143 South 200 West where they lived until after she was married. This home was already built and had been lived in by Charles Seegmiller. Clio had a hard time being born. Because of her mother Elizabeth's build, their first child was stillborn. When Clio came along her mother was told that she couldn't have children, and Lizzie had a long, hard labor, and Clio was as white as a sheet. They dipped her from warm water into cold water until she cried. Elizabeth had nine children, but the first and last were stillborn. One died later, leaving six children growing up together having a happy childhood, always making their own fun. The children were: Clio, Bessie Gardner, Joseph, LaVera Pelt, Ina Bracken, and Andrew McArthur. Three of these children were born when James was called to Kentucky to go on a mission for two years. On his return, he was put in as Bishop and was to run the Tithing Office. It fell to Clio to help by taking in loads of hay for tithing and writing receipts and weight bills. Later the other children in the family took turns doing this. James, along with some other men, contracted to build a section of the old Arrowhead Trail between Leeds and Pintura. This venture was unsuccessful and James became deeply in debt, so he decided to buy the tithing office and go into the bakery business! This was known for years as the Quality Bakery. James and Elizabeth worked hard to pay off the debt, which they did as they were good cooks like Lizzie's father, whose mission it was to cook for the men who were building the St. George Temple. Each child has worked in the bakery, and even some of the grandchildren. While Clio was a young girl, about eleven, she and Bessie had to milk two cows night and morning. They would sing popular songs to the cows, quite loudly, and their father didn't like it. He thought the songs were bad songs, and if they were singing church songs, then that would be different. Elizabeth taught the girls to cook and sew. Clio took a fancywork class and went to two years of High School. During this time she took domestic science. She was good in arithmetic and was able to teach her children to understand it. After High School she went to work in the Andrus Store. She worked there nine months before she was married and nine months after she was married. While still a girl at home, the kitchen was on the north of the house and in the winter, the north steps were always covered with ice and snow. The room was so cold where the water was, that they washed the dishes in a pan on a table in a nearby room. One day Clio went to throw the dishwater out the north door and slipped on the icy steps and went . . . out into the snow. As she fell, she screamed! ..."Oh, Ma, I'm dead, I'm dead!" Bessie, who was helping her, had laughed about this many times with Clio. The James McArthur family grew their own popcorn and invited their friends to help pick it. After it was picked and dried, they invited them back again to pop it and they made popcorn for the whole bunch. What fun that was! They raised a lot of bees, and it was Clio's job to run the extractor. She also had to put a cover over her head to gather the honey. She also kept on milking cows as they sold the cream to Pike's Drugstore. All her children were born before she quit milking cows. Kids together with Clio were her neighbors, Ione Stucki and Eleanor Smith. She was in a fun crowd of girls and a few are Lola Woodbury, Jule Lamb, Addie Andrus, Miriam Platt, Rachael Blake, Ione Alger, Pauline Kemp and Berniece Gates Bringhurst. Some of the traditional things in the family have come from the fun Clio had in her youth, as she wanted her children to experience that same fun and excitement. In her teen years, she had many friends both male and female. They made the 3rd and 4th of July very special. The girls all slept at Clio's home bringing homemade root beer and homemade ice cream. They joined the boys for hayrack rides and dancing. On the morning of the 4th, the girls dressed in their new dresses and went to the program and sports uptown. Clio always remembered the good lemonade in barrels which everyone, even the Indians, drank from the tin cup. Then they returned home to prepare a big dinner of fried chicken, fresh corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, new potatoes, and anything fresh from the garden. There was much love and respect in their family for one another. Not one child called James anything but "father." The family never went to bed without saying their family prayers, kneeling around the chairs and "father" would always say the prayer. In the crowd of boys and girls that liked to mingle around and talk together, was Victor Sullivan, who would always come over from the East Ward, held in the Tabernacle, to the West Ward, which was held in the Woodward. There he found Clio and ended up talking with her. They would go for rides on Sunday on the buckboard, pulled by a team of horses, and sometimes go to picture shows. They never had dates, only for Mutual or Sunday night meetings. Traveling plays used to come to town and were held at the Social Hall or Opera House as it was called, later it was known as the beet plant, it is across the street from the new Post Office in St. George. Clio's mother knew Victor couldn't afford to take Clio, so she said she couldn't go. After some really fun days of growing up together, Victor and Clio were married in the St. George Temple when she was 19 years of age. They lived with Lizzie and James until just after their first child, Mary, was born, a year later. They moved to a small house down by the temple and every day Clio would put her baby and later babies in the buggy and walk to her mother's house to quilt, sew or crochet. She liked to show her children off as she walked to town. One day Katherine Bunker met her and said, "Oh, here is Clio with her little square hair cuts and smiling faces." After four children were born, they moved to the home where Clio lived until she died, 135 South Main. A week after they were married, Victor and his brother Gordon went to "Rahas" Auto School in Kansas City. When he returned home, he went to work in a garage and sheared sheep for his brother Charles. Victor and Clio's family came fast. Most were born two years apart, except Lela and Deloris, who were one year, one month, one week and one day apart. They had six girls and three sons. They were Mary Hasfurther, Edith Whitehead, Lela Cox, Deloris Seegmiller, Alma Spendlove, Victor Joseph, Cleo Wardle, Ralph James and Robert Urie Sullivan. Each child was born at home with a midwife and no hospital. It took lots of cooking to feed this family of eleven. Clio made eight loaves of bread every day and had a seven-quart pressure cooker pan full of mashed potatoes which they ate along with some gravy, meat and vegetables. Her hot biscuits out of the bread dough were delicious. Delores remembered Aunt LaVera dropping in at noon just for a hot biscuit. Also, the Indians used to come begging for something to eat. "Biscuit, I want Biscuit" they would say after coming into the house without knocking. They scared the girls to death, especially "Old Curly." Clio said they used to live in the tamaracks across the street from Brent Talbot's Interiors (700 East). There were Toab, Sally and others. The squaws would wash clothes for people who could afford it. Clio never had the Indians wash for her, although she was days were hard. She would drag old limbs down from by the corral and make a fire under an old black tub, scrub the clothes by hand and punch the clothes to get them clean. She always had a good, big, clean wash. Clio's children would not have known they were in the depression, except for the strange people who came to their house and begged for food or money. She always gave them something. They were poor, too, but Clio never made them feel poor. She kept them fed, clean and well dressed. Clio enjoyed poetry and wished she could have given readings. She recited one when they were small that was a favorite of all. It was "Hurry Doctor Tommy." Oh, the great joy Clio knew when on Feb. 11, 1926 her first boy was born, after five girls. The family had agreed he should be named for his father and grandfather Sullivan, Victor John. His grandfather Joseph James McArthur did the naming, but named him Victor Joseph after himself. So, the family called him "VJ." Clio never did care for nicknames, and tried to name good solid names on her children. "VJ" was a constant test to Clio. His bosom friend, Lorraine Milne and VJ painted themselves with bright red real paint. He also fell in the outside outhouse before he was two. He was run over by a car and survived that. Then he was climbing around in the chapel (2nd & 8th Ward) during the building of it and jumped from one story to the other and broke his leg. But, his life was short, as on July 11, 1936, he took his cousin, Robert Gardner and his brother Ralph, ages eight and five on the Red Hill to see a friend. The friend was not able to play right then, so the boys went over to Cox's Pond and VJ chose to show the boys how he could swim, as he had just passed his Red Cross Swimming Test. The boys decided to hide his clothes to fool him. Soon Bar Musser and a friend came to swim and as VJ had not come out, Ralph told Bar to get his brother out. They showed him the clothes and Bar dived in and brought him up. The other boy ran for Dr. McGregor but there was no life left in the perfect body. Clio was stunned and called this child to every meal for at least a year. The wonderful Mother, whom she was, gathered her family around her and explained they must live lives to be able to meet VJ in the hereafter. There was always a crowd of boys and girls around our neighborhood who liked to play with Clio's children. Delores was amazed at how Clio stood the quarrels and noise they created. They played "Run Sheep Run," "Kick the Can," "Steal the Sticks," and sometimes while they were playing in the yard one of the neighbor kids would say, "Go in the house and get us some stale doughnuts or some candy from the bakery, go on in, we're hungry." So, they did. They never went anyplace else to play. They were always in Clio's yard. Clio said she would rather that they would be home where she knew what they were doing. Delores said she wondered why they couldn't have oranges, apples and bananas in a fruit bowl on the table, like the Princes and Hafens, but they ate everything up as fast as it came in the house. One day while they were playing in their yard, a neighbor Howard Wilkins, climbed their tree to rob the bird's next and fell and broke his leg. They took the kitchen door off to lay him on and walked to the hospital a block away. This brought all the neighbors and much concern to Mother. Clio loved to crochet, but could not find much time between bottling 400 quarts of fruit, taking care of a huge garden, and sewing all of her children's clothes. Clio said she always liked to make something out of nothing and some of their cutest clothes were made from hand-me-downs from Bessie, LaVera and Ina. Grandma McArthur helped Clio sew and make quilts for the winter. It was so cold they had to have so many covers piled on them that they could hardly turn over in bed. They usually took hot water bottles to bed to get their feet warm. Valentine's Days they each took a decorated heart-shaped cake to their teacher that Clio had made and decorated. She would make eight or 10. An extra one was made for D.E. Foredom, the music teacher because he made so much fuss. They got to thinking that the teachers must fight over having Clio's children in their class so they could have a cake. Clio made all the girls a new dress for the 4th of July, with ruffles galore out of organdy and lace. As they grew older, she would make them a Girl's Day dress. They got a new winter coat when they needed it, usually made from hand-me-down coats. Grandma McArthur would come over and help Clio take them apart to start making a new one. It seems like every time the kids would come home, Mother was ironing. One time Mary decided she would get the ironing all done, so she started. It took three weeks of ironing every day. Sometimes they would put some ironing back that they didn't want to iron and one day Clio said, "There are clothes in that basket that have been here a year . . . if you don't want them bad enough to iron them, then let's throw them away." There were always pigs, chickens, horses and cows to feed and Clio did this with the boys' help. There were always weeds to hoe in the summertime, too. As soon as the children became old enough, they would get some little job away from home. They were able to pay for a new telephone with the messenger fee they got from calling people to the phone and with the money from their baby tending jobs. Clio worked hard to keep up the old house. She would paint and paper, filling up all the holes in the wall with plaster. She could fix about anything that went wrong. One man came to fix the plumbing and said, "Gee, I'm glad she doesn't know how to fix this or I'd be out of a job." When the family was partly grown, Clio decided to have the old lean-to back rooms torn off and have a basement. They finished digging the basement and that night Mother was wakened by a cracking sound. She woke Dad up and said, "There goes the house." Yes, the whole two walls of the house slipped into the hole dug for the basement. For weeks they pretended they were in the movies. They were open to anyone who wanted to take their picture. Clio said, "No great loss without some small gain, I'll get a new sink now," and they finished the new rooms and basement. This gave them their first bathroom. Mary had a bath in a real bathtub the day she was married. Clio was full of wise sayings. Some she said the most were: "I can't is a sluggard, too lazy to try." "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." "Do that over, anything worth doing at all, is worth doing well." "Use a little elbow grease. Work never hurt anyone." "Get the corners good first and the middle will take care of itself." Their house was not the best built house on the block, the floor squeaked, the roof leaked, and when it rained they had to set pans around on the beds and floor to catch the rain. They had a lot of fun together while at home. They would sing what they called "dishwater harmony" while they were doing the dishes. Delores said she didn't know how Mother could stand their loud singing, but she said she liked it and that is was better to sing than to cry. She gave all the children a chance to take piano lessons. She wanted them to be talented, but putting up with Ralph, Cleo, Lela and Alma practicing the tenor-sax, and Delores pounding the snare drum, was hard to take when compared to Mary practicing the piano. Their talents went in different directions. Four of her daughters were beauty operators, and guess whom they practiced on? Right! Clio! She was patient in letting them try everything on her hair. One day Delores was doing her whole head in pin curls, just practicing and she laid her head on the table and went to sleep. Edith was an artist and worked with flowers. She owned and managed Edith's Floral and retired in 1974. Lela graduated from college at Logan in Home Economics. Lela said, "The greatest contributions that Mama made to society have been her nine children. She taught us a moral code of ethics to make our word as good as our bond. She taught us to be honest, chaste and virtuous. Her diligence in teaching her children important principles had made each one a true example of what a good citizen and church members should be. She taught us always to look nice and to be clean no matter how much we hated those Saturday night baths in the #three tub. Mama taught us the value of work. We each had our daily chores to do. She was probably more proud of her children in her later years than she was when she dressed us up and showed us off to her friends. She made each of her children a living example of what she always desired them to be, honest citizens and hard workers." Clio belonged to a neat Book Club with Zetta Worthen, Elsie Best Farnsworth, Vilate Prince, Anna Bentley, Martha Schmutz, Afton McArthur, Ruth Worthen, Golda Foremaster, Olive Hirschi, Marie Squires, and Clara Squires Bunting. They called the club the "O.D.O. Club" which meant: "Our days off!" Clio didn't go many places away from home, but when Mary and Edith were old enough to stay with the smaller children, she would go get a "marcel" from Althea Snow Nelson and go to the O.D.O. Club. Lela also remembers how Clio looked when she was younger, as she had beautiful auburn hair that was long and she bobbed it up. Lela remembers the day she went to the beauty shop and had it all cut short! She said they all cried, but it was pretty the way she had it marcelled. Clio's church work began early, and she taught Primary in the West Ward, and also Sunday School. She was secretary of the M.I.A., Work Counselor in the Relief Society when Byron Taylor was the Bishop. Marvel Pendleton and Elsie Hafen were in the Presidency with her. She had been a visiting teacher for many years. She taught Mary's 4-H class in sewing. Mary and Ruth Milne Roundy won the demonstration on "How to make a bias petticoat" and won a trip to Logan with Walter Smith. They placed third in the State. Being the eldest daughter and raised around the bakery, Clio went to work as soon as the children were older and in school. She was a specialist in making pies, jelly rolls, cakes, doughnuts, coconut rolls, and cookies. She worked in the bakery until after she was 72 years of age. Late at night and early in the morning she could be seen walking to or from the bakery. She always said she didn't have to work, but she liked the association of the young people who worked with her. She enjoyed giving $20.00 a month toward the Missionary Fund and gave money to the boys from the bakery, her grandsons, and granddaughters who have gone on missions. Clio loved to do Temple work and was called to work in the Temple to hand out clothing. She did initiatory work, sealing, and endowment work and loved to do it all. Clio had a lot of faith and her compassion for others kept her busy running to take care of a sick neighbor or have them run to her. Andrew was the youngest boy in her own family and he knew he could go to Clio for help . . . if he was sick or to get some advise. She was like a second Mother to him. She took care of one of Joseph's boys who had a deteriorating disease and from age two to nine years had to be cared for as a baby. Clio cared for him night and day for six months to give Aunt Gertrude a rest. They had a player piano in their home which we all played and danced to all through the years. Clio kept it fixed up and the rolls up to date so the grandchildren and great grandchildren could enjoy it as much as her children had. Delores' girl friends used to come and play and sing to it. This bunch of girls, or the A.D.Q. Club made up nicknames for all of their mothers and fathers. Clio was named "Clio Sue" and Victor "Victor Lou," Ruth's Mother . . . "Arilla Jean" and "Arthur K. Rean." These names really stuck and lots of times the girls called her Clio Sue. No disrespect, it just made her feel young. Cleo told one story on Clio. Cleo met two strange boys up town and came home to ask her Mother if she could go out with them. Clio said, "No, I think they are too fast for your age." Cleo said, "Then you'll have to tell them I can't go." She went downstairs to separate the milk and they came, so Clio told them she had gone to the show. After they left, she called Cleo and said, "Put on your coat, we are going to the show. You are not making a liar out of me." They went to the show and Clio slept all during the movie. Clio had two cute little boys, Robert and Ralph. They were certainly part of Clio's life. She went to the Hospital for an operation and while there, Robert, still quite young, wanted to do something special for her, so, he changed the ditch and planted a lawn in the back yard. Everyone said it wouldn't grow, but it did. When Clio returned home from the hospital, she looked out the back door, and she was so thrilled and surprised. She said, "Oh, you mean I won't have any more mud in my house?" Robert married Camellia Carter in the Temple. They had two boys and two girls, he owned and operated his own backhoe-loader and dump truck business. Robert died almost two years before Clio did and it was very hard on her to see her baby die and leave his four teenage children and his wife. Ralph married Lois Peterson in the Salt Lake Temple. They also had two boys and two girls. They spent a lot of time living in Camarillo, California. Clio was always very glad when her children living away from home would come home for a visit. She always planned a big party with the whole family, so everyone could be together. Clio was proud of Ralph. He filled an honorable mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, graduated from Brigham Young University with a Master Degree in Chemistry, and was then offered a very good job in a big company. So, he gave up getting his Doctor's degree. He traveled all over the world doing water and air pollution studies, including Iran and Jerusalem. Clio offered to make meat pies for the Fourth Ward in about 1961, when Bishop T. LaVoy Esplin was in. Their neighbor, Willard Milne could smell what was cooking at their house all those years, and they took Clio up on her offer. She had a crew and made 200 meat pies the first year, and about 2,000 the last year she made them. They always made them at deer season for the deer hunters. It was such a successful project for the ward. Meat pies and biscuits were always one of the children's favorite meals at home. Clio's life was full of things to do. She almost always had a quilt on in her front room. She did hand work and liked to crochet in order to rest between quilting. She gave each grandchild something that she had made for Christmas lots of years. She made each of her 34 grandchildren tricot quilts for their wedding presents. She made beautiful linen luncheon cloths and pillow cases. She enjoyed doing things for others and had her own friends over for Family Home Evening. She was full of wisdom, loved to watch television, liked to watch Lawrence Welk, loved to read, raised all kinds of flowers, loved to sew, embroidery and enjoyed most of all having her family get together at her house. She usually had 45 to 75 of her family for Thanksgiving dinner. She had 34 grandchildren and 64 great grandchildren at the time of her death in 1983. Each of them received some of her good qualities and wisdom, and love . . . and they knew, as her children did, that when she says "no" she means "NO." She had some joy late in her life. She went on many trips, usually including a Temple in the area. In September of 1975 she flew with Edith and Grant Whitehead to Washington, D.C. to the Temple, and saw them off on their mission to London, England. She was honored in August of 1975 as "Orchid Lady" by the Literary Arts Club of St. George. In 1976 she entered the Utah Quilt contest celebrating the Bi-Centennial of the United States of America. Her granddaughter, Susan Cox Ramoz, designed the quilt and Clio pieced it together and quilted it. She won first place in the contest, and she was very proud of that accomplishment. Often she would make quilts of the St. George Temple and give them to visiting General Authorities of the Church. Clio died peacefully in her sleep on July 1, 1983. One of her daughters said, she taught us how to live and she showed us how to die, happy and at peace. Baptism records were lost, Clio was rebaptized 2 Dec 1961 Civil divorced Victor Sullivan, 2 Dec 1959. Name: Sullivan, Clio Mcarthur Birth Date: 24 December 1896 Birth Place: St. George, Utah Death Date: 1 July 1983 Death Place: St. George, Utah Burial Date: 0 0 0 Cemetery: St. George City Cemetery Source: Sexton / Grant Grave Location: C_8_2_1

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